


Humanity

by knightlyss



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, and for my wishful thinking, spoilers for 5x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:49:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightlyss/pseuds/knightlyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she marries is out of necessity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humanity

The first time she marries is out of necessity.

 

It had been a long time coming, really. Everyone always said so. They had been young and foolish, and she hadn't known what to do when everything suddenly started crumbling around her. One minute she saw her pregnancy as a failure in life, a nightmare, and the next, the man she thought was to be offered to take all of her pain away in exchange for safety.

 

She gladly took up on his gallant offer, and didn't look back on her decision until many years later, when doubt finally started to settle. Years later, when her daughter was still young, beautiful, and, most importantly, untouched. Her husband always took it out on her. Damned if she'd ever let him touch her darling girl, the only thing in the world that she truly desired to keep clean and pure at all times. To hell with herself: She could take the punches, soak them up and let them grow on her skin, let the rainbow blemishes taint her until the next round, but no one was to touch her baby girl.

 

She tried leaving once, but fate had other plans in store for her. Her child with the golden hair had still been a toddler, not understanding their need for a stay in a building surrounded by sympathetic faces, stubbornly calling for her daddy. Something inside her broke that day, at the realization that she would bend over backwards until her daughter stopped crying. If it meant going back to the monster behind the four walls, then so be it. She would take the abuse another day, come hell or high water, because her daughter chose it. Such a childlike mind could never understand that every colour on her mother's skin was for her, or that her father's words, kind or cruel, were never meant for her. He never paid her much attention, because he assumed he didn't have to. Provide the meat for the table, and feast on the flesh of his woman. She stopped looking in the mirror after that, refusing to see the result of her sacrifice. Her daughter's happiness was enough to keep her going until the next day.

 

And then the end of the world happened.

 

One minute they were in their own dysfunctional world, taking care of their own lives, when words like 'outbreak' and 'apocalypse' started becoming every-day words. They packed up and left, driving as far as they could before getting stuck in a graveyard of cars outside the city. They met up with others, and kept to themselves when they could. They stayed alive.

 

Her husband's death was a strange relief. For just a moment, she let herself believe that the rest of group would stop looking at her through narrowed eyes, a mixture of sympathy and disgust evident on their faces. Of course they would judge her; They had no idea that her little girl controlled her every move. Her husband had never been the puppet master. For just a little moment, she was free from the bonds of matrimony and law, free from the danger of the known monster that shared her bed.

 

Her daughter disappeared. She prayed. She cried. The eyes around her worked overtime, and she felt herself break under their gaze, contorting her into inhuman shapes.

 

She didn't realize until much later, that it had all started back then. When he handed her the pickaxe and let her finish the job herself. When he had shown her the Cherokee roses he had found while searching for her daughter. When he had held her back tight against this chest, his fingers like claws against her skin to hold her back from her child, whose skin had turned from fair to dead. When he yelled at her to leave him be and cursed her, and she couldn't find it within herself to obey the deep, dark baritone of the male specimen any more. With everyone gone around her, who was left to pull her strings?

 

It horrified her for a time, to admit to herself that her daughters death was a blessing in disguise. It had been the last tie to her husband, and her only tie to humanity. With it gone, she was free to do what she wanted, free to fight for survival, and free to live. It was liberating, disgusting, and she wanted more of it.

 

What she hadn't taken into account was just how attached she would become to him. She found herself wanting his opinion, his closeness, wanting to help shape him into becoming the person he was supposed to be. She could see it in him somehow. They were cut from the same cloth, but on different sides of it. Where she had taken a passive approach to the abuse, he had fought back with tooth and nail, letting it taint him for so long, that it should have been impossible for any outsider to tell, if it truly was him, or just a façade. She knew better, and she let him know, and he hated her for it. Somehow though, she had gotten under his skin, and he under hers.

 

He found her hiding in a cell, carrying her half-dead form back to the main part of the prison, his warmth welcome against her chilly skin. She teased him mercilessly from time to time, and he snorted and smiled in return. She mourned the loss of him when he disappeared, as she could only imagine he did hers when the tables turned. She protected him from his brother as best she could, just like she had once wished someone had protected her against her husband. She slowly, steadily opened up again, and refused to let others meet the same fate as her daughter. The children were a passion project, and the adults were friends. And it all went to hell.

 

She blamed herself for the hope she had once felt when she was still truly alive. You don't come back from killing innocent people, and she gradually let the humanity leave her again. The person she had once shaped herself to become was slowly fading, and she would once again become a hollow shell of a woman; Someone who had once been strong.

 

At the first chance of saving her family, she returned to finish the job. She owed them that much. She fought, she screamed, she killed mercilessly, and she was good at it. Letting the darkness consume her from the inside out was the only chance she had at survival alone, so she embraced it wholeheartedly, until it dawned on her, that her job was far from over. He was still there. They all were. So she grit her teeth and found them, and she was swept off her feet by him, as she cradled his head against her shoulder while he cried. He stayed close while the rest of her family embraced her, thanked her even, but the darkness had already spread. Still, he never let her out of his sight, even as she decided for herself that it was time to resume her original plan and survive on her own. And when the time came to save another member of the family, he dragged her along and gave her a purpose, a break from her thoughts, however momentarily, and a surprising insight into her life and his.

 

It would always be like this, she mused. One way or another, as long as they were both alive, they'd pull each other from the muck and help clean each other off, they'd fight off whatever obstacle thrown in their way, be it his or hers. They had each other's back, and that was more than enough reason to keep living for now.

 

And when the time came when they were reunited and safe, she let a sliver of humanity in again. Carefully at first, feeling out the territory around her. She started teasing him again, and he gladly took hold of her words, even going as far as teasing her back. They shared what they could of each other, from the very first bruise to the very last tear. Steadily, they let their world expand slowly, until they were both engulfed, together, entwined, inseparable.

 

* * *

 

The second time she marries is out of love.

 

It's been a long time coming, really. Everyone has always said so. They are both happy and healthy under the circumstances, bound together by everything but formality. They insist it's not a big deal. He finds her a simple dress, and she finds him a new pair of boots. They manage to find rings on a two-day run, and they return wearing them with pride. They spend their wedding day in private under a tree, only speaking when necessary. They take a walk in the woods, his crossbow slung over his shoulder, her knife in hand.

 

They stay alive, using each other as an anchor, and as a reminder that their humanity lies with each other. And when the time comes, they die fighting, each other's names on their lips, their hands joined, and their lives complete.

 


End file.
